Electricity meters that measure energy consumption or power consumption typically connect between a utility power line and a load. For example, an electricity meter for a residential customer is often connected at the point at which the electrical system of the residence connects to the utility line. The meter may thereby perform measurements regarding the energy consumed by the load. The utility service provider uses the information measured by the meter for billing and other purposes.
Meters convey energy consumption information to the utility service provider in many different ways. In a simple form, the meter includes an electronic display or mechanical counters on which energy consumption information is displayed. The utility service provider then employs a utility meter reader to visit the site of the meter to obtain the displayed information. In other cases, energy consumption information may be conveyed remotely by circuits within the meter. To this end, the meter circuitry can include or be attached to a telephone modem, a power line communication modem, or wireless communication device. The ability to remotely communicate metering information is known as automatic meter reading or “AMR”.
Meters capable of remote communication for AMR often take advantage of the communication ability for other purposes. For example, utility service providers can use AMR communication systems to provide updates to meter software, updates to calibration values within the meter, obtain diagnostic information, and even operate switches within certain types of meters.
Despite the varied uses of remote meter communication, individual meters nevertheless tend to perform remote communication operations infrequently. Accordingly, the cost and inconvenience of providing communication equipment and associated connections are not always justified. However, in cases were multiple meters can be accessed via a single communication network interface, the cost of AMR and related remote communication services becomes more attractive. For example, in retail commercial, multi-family dwellings, and industrial settings, several meters for several customers may be located in a single place. For example, it is known to have an array of meters in a service room at an apartment building. In such cases, power lines are fed to the service room, and are branched off to the feeder lines to the individual apartments. When several meters are in a single location, it is possible for all of the meters to be locally connected to a single meter that contains remote communication capability. Thus, several meters can carry out AMR for the cost of only outfitting a single meter with network communication circuitry.
For example, it is known to have a single master meter coupled to a network via a telephone modem or the like, and have a plurality of slave meters communicate to the master meter using ANSI protocol communications on an RS 485 physical layer. The meter processing circuitry of the master meter operates as a communication server that obtains messages for any of the meter group, stores the messages, and then causes communication of information within the messages via the RS 485 physical layer to the appropriate slave meter.
A drawback to this approach is that telephone line modems operate at relatively low data rates and have other disadvantages. Moreover, the configuration of the communication server of the master meter can be time consuming and complex.
Accordingly, there is a need for method and arrangement for providing high speed communications to a plurality of meters that does not suffer the deficiencies of the prior art systems.